by Lana Hartley
I dared to let myself look in those eyes again. I wanted to fall into them. In fact, I could almost see the melodramatic swaying of my limbs as I fell forever into the bottomless pit of Jacob Renaud's soul. Who would be there to catch me? No one. That was the point. And I couldn't bear another moment of the conversation we were having, and I couldn't fight how he made me feel when he touched me.
It killed me to want him, but the way he touched me made me feel alive.
Leah
Fuck, what had I done? I'd spent so much time trying not to want Renaud, that I didn't realize he'd stopped being that person to me. He was Jacob to me, and now it was all too late. Now, I'd found a way to actually separate myself from him, and that plan was in motion. Irrevocable motion. And I wanted nothing more than to stop it.
"Jacob," I yelped, saying his name in my mind and not the usual Renaud.
He regarded me inquisitively. There was doubtless a strange tone in my voice. But I didn't know what to say.
So I said nothing.
How did I manage this? I'd fought so hard to find a home of my own, and now I'd be leaving the only home I'd known. Him.
"What were your parents like?" I would ask him a question. It would throw us both off guard. I knew when he inhaled that I'd sufficiently shifted the situation from my little outbreak to the focus being on another one of my prying questions. Why couldn't I accept that there were things that Jacob didn't want to talk about?
I knew why now...
Because I wanted all of him. And now I was practically mocking that with this question.
He ran his thumb up my arm, stroking a line while he took measured breaths.
"My mother was my father's muse. My father was an artist, and a rarity at that, he was rather wealthy," Jacob said as if he remembered something very specific though saying very vague things.
Of course, I would pry. My curiosity wouldn't have it any other way.
"Is that where you started noticing things you'd steal for fun?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"It was when I started to think I wanted to be an artist. There was a passion between my parents, her the subject and him the artist. I realized, after much toiling, that she was as much the art as the artist's canvasses were." I noted that distant look in his eyes and his words twisted in my stomach. "I gave up creating art, but I didn't get a taste for stealing it until much later. I didn't even make use of any of my father's contacts when I started doing art thief gigs. I run in much higher circles than he ever did."
I couldn't quite place the emotions playing over Jacob's face. I ran my hand over his face, his eyes closing and accepting my touch. How did I have this titan of a man so gentle in my hands?
How had I not realized that I didn't want to let this all go? I wanted to scream at how much I wanted to stop everything I'd set in motion. What could I do now?
I sucked in a breath of my own, planting a kiss on each of his closed eyelids. I rested my head on his chest.
Jacob started to stroke my hair. It was a gentle, comforting move that seemed like the most natural thing in the world to him. The man who had done so many things to my body was undoing my heart with a simple weaving of his fingers into my hair. "Did you know your mother?" Jacob asked me.
"Not really. My father gave her money to keep me, and she had no interest in me. She just moved on after the payday,” I said, my voice small. I had always been something to be bought and sold, and I'd fought against this, now to my own peril. Suddenly, the warmth of Jacob's embrace wasn't enough to keep me from the chills I felt. I knew that once he discovered my betrayal, he was going to hate me forever, rightfully. I deserved that. I didn't deserve to be in his arms. I couldn't bear the hate that I felt inside. I had let down the one man that I'd actually wanted to own me. I did now. I don't know who I am without him, and I thought that I was going to find out. Now, I can't even bring myself to pull myself out of his embrace. Jacob holds me tighter and thinks I'm just cold, probably, but I can't stop them, and the tears are falling now. I want to hide them, but they're already streaking down my cheeks and wetting his shirt.
"Leah?" Jacob asks me, his voice thick with passion. I feel his cock hard beneath me, and I know he wants me. He always wants me. I let out a small laugh. I thought that could never change, yet here I am, ruining us. I want our goodbye kiss to be a good one, though. I tell myself that I should let myself have this moment with him, and then I'll be gone. He will never forgive me. Never want me again. So I have to savor this moment with him.
His thumb is capturing my tears but can't keep up with the sobs that wrack my body. I want him. I don't want him to ask me what's wrong. I don't want him to care. I want him to hate me and cast me aside. I want him to tell me that I'm not worth owning. I've betrayed him, like a bad dog that though he's fed and cared for still bites him. I rebelled against everything he gave me. I treated him like he was everyone else in my life, but he was different. He wasn't just claiming me, owning me, he was giving himself to me. And I'd thrown that all away without noticing that I was doing exactly the wrong thing.
"Are you okay?" Jacob kissed my forehead. My throat was scratchy from crying, and I couldn't speak. "Baby girl," he breathed into my hair.
I grabbed his face with both of my hands, pulling him to me and kissing him deeply. I poured my soul from my lips to his, emptying myself in him. I wanted to take everything in me that loved him and hide away in him. Keep me safe from myself.
"Leah-" Jacob broke the kiss and held my face up to his, forcing me to look into his eyes. "Talk to me," he said. He could have thought this was just about our conversation, but I felt my face heat. My cheeks were red enough to reveal my traitorous ways, I was certain of it. "Tell me what's wrong."
Well, not enough to reveal everything. I should have manned up and told him right then what I'd done. That I'd be gone tomorrow and that Interpol would be after him. I'd given them damning evidence about several of his crimes, and they were high profile. I'd told them that he'd bought me from my father. They said they were going to take Renaud down. And when I'd delivered that final piece of evidence, I'd felt how I didn't want to do it. The officer told me that it was normal that I'd feel conflicted, but that he was going to protect me. Peter Willoughby, the same name, and initials of my father. He should have made me feel safe. The way that he looked at me, how he wanted to save me, that should have felt right. But I knew. The conflicted feelings that I felt weren't about my need for making sense of my captivity. Jacob had told me, I was not trading one cage for another. He gave me every opportunity to have a life, and I fought against it. I saw now that Jacob's world, it may not have been that different from my father's world on the surface, but Jacob was a good man. He was my good man, and I'd thrown him to the wolves, condemning him as if he was a monster like my father.
I remembered Jacob telling me he was a bastard. That it was why he'd never be like another lover would be. I'd never had another lover. But I thought I was the bastard now. Not him. Jacob had given me everything in him. I closed my eyes and said nothing, the silence between us sealing my sentence as much as his.
He would probably be sent to some horrible prison, made to be an example to other powerful men. I would be forced to live with what I did forever.
Because if I called Inspector Willoughby right now, what would he say? Oh, you love him and none of what you told us matters?
As if. Jacob Renaud was a criminal, and a powerful one. Yet, I'd help them build exactly the kind of case that could get him in serious trouble.
Leah
It worked last time. I asked someone if I could use their phone, and then I could call Inspector Willoughby and give him the information I'd memorized. Every waking moment, I'd made myself memorize the notes on the other paintings I'd found in Jacob's collection. I'd made myself remember the inspector's phone number. I spent so much of the day repeating those numbers in my head; I thought I was going to dream about them.
But every night, I dreamt about Jacob. Strange t
hings, odd things, and things that made me wake up in a cold sweat and, if he was there, made me curl up to him. I even felt guilty that I'd given him a blowjob and swirled the number into his cock. I'd pressed my head deeper on his cock and swallowed afterward, sucking his cock with every last drop of energy, and it was like I have to get the evil I've done off of him.
How screwed up is that? He owns me. I am trying to get away from him. And now I'm making myself feel guilty for that. I want to scream. I fuck him during the day and try to remember those numbers, but it’s what was happening every night that makes me so relentlessly unsatisfied and fills me with such a deep yearning. I need some relief. I thought so much stress would be off me when I was able to make this phone call, but I haven't been able to make this phone call because everyone in the bathroom today was in a hurry or said their phones were dead as well.
I only had another minute or two before Tatiana suspected something.
And then she walks into the bathroom, slipping into a stall.
Shit.
"Here you go," a smiling woman with the brightest blue eyes I've ever seen says to me. I know I should say something about how I don't need it now and tell her never mind or something, but I'm too afraid now that if I don't take the chance, I'll be screwed. "Just one second then, thank you so much," I say, sliding into the stall and hoping that the inspector answers right away, I say what I need to, and that is that.
But the phone keeps ringing.
I start to get afraid that I got the number wrong. I'm watching the ground, I need Tatiana's shoes to still be in her stall before while I give this woman her phone back, or I'm totally fucked. I start to see her leave and I hang up, shoving the phone back into the nice girl's hand sort of rudely. I smile at her, knowing I must seem crazy. "Thanks so much!" I mutter, and I step out of the bathroom. Tatiana will know that I’m right outside. I just needed to get out of there that second before I exploded with nerves.
I head back to the house that day, and I'm grateful for just a second to see that Jacob is on his way out, but then I'm blaming my nerves on the slight disappointment I felt. I'm supposed to be getting out and building a life for myself. Not sitting around wishing that I was going to be having some all-night orgasm fest with the man I'm trying to escape. Still, when he presses a soulful kiss to my lips, his whole body capturing mine, I wrap my arms around his neck and pull back until he pins me against the wall. I tell myself that I'm pressing my body into his so urgently because I'm playing a role. But aching for him and wishing the kiss would never end, I can't blame that on nerves. Maybe I can blame it on the recurring dreams where I want to fuck Jacob, but I don't. We're two people in separate lives, and he wants nothing to do with me.
Is this my shitty fear? That I can't have my own life? Is it because I think that I'll never feel the way I do for someone who doesn't buy me? Because I think Jacob wouldn't give a shit about me if he hadn't bought me? I don't want to dwell on any of these thoughts. I just need to steel myself for the gathering of more evidence while he was gone. I don't think I'll be watched in his home, and today I could dig up something more. Too bad that I can't make a call.
I'm holding him tight against me. He drops his briefcase so that both his hands can prowl against me, and I can't kid myself that I'm playing some role when I let him spread my legs with his knee. I try to breathe when he unzips his slacks, and I turn around and pull up my dress, and I'm about to yank down my panties, but I feel him behind me doing just that. Holding me up against the wall, he slides into me.
"You're so wet for me, baby girl. I don't want to leave you either." Jacob whispers into my ear. His words are like my weakness at this moment that destroys me. I tell myself this means that I have to fight harder than ever to get away from him. Jacob Renaud has consumed every inch of me and made me his. I can't have that. "I crave you," he growls against my skin, licking my neck and then biting into me just a little too hard. I yelp, my pussy squeezing his thick cock spearing me so well. I'm moaning loudly, saying his name over and over again. It sounds so fucking good, tastes good on my lips. I want to say his name forever because I can feel how hard he thrusts into me each time that I do. I'm fucking desperate to satisfy him in this way. He feeds off every moment I want him, and I feed off of that. It is twisted as hell, but it makes me feel needed. Wanted. Desired. Loved, almost. But he can't love me.
Or maybe he does. But I can't love him. I just can't.
Not after everything I've worked for. If I love him, how can I do these things?
I'm in enemy territory. I have been this whole time. I can't give into what he does to my body and let it overtake my mind.
I have to hold onto my soul because I want to believe that I can have a life where I don't belong to anyone.
And maybe I can.
But when his fingers wrap around my throat, my heart thunders in my chest, and I don't know if I want to have a life where I don't belong to him. He's poisoned me, infected me, seeped into my very being. I crave him, too. I want to tell him now, just to feel his response. If I told Jacob Renaud that I loved him, what would that mean? I get the feeling that I have no damn idea exactly what that would mean and I'm fucking dying to know.
How can I be plotting to trap him in prison forever so he can never touch me again, and literally panting in ecstasy, coming and praying that he never stops touching me?
He's leaving tonight. I have a job to do. I come down from the incredible high of our orgasm. He drops to his knees, kissing my ass cheek before giving it a slap that makes me bounce, and then pulls my panties up. He turns me around, kissing me again, and it feels like we could start this whole thing over again. The way he kisses me melts me, overtakes my soul, drowns me in emotions that seem to be able to shatter everything inside me. He tastes safe. He tastes like home. I don't want him to mean any of those things to me. He just can't. I must just not know what real safety feels like. I have to get that for myself. I'm the one who holds me prisoner if I let these feelings take hold within me.
Jacob straightens his clothes, picks up his briefcase, and heads for the door. I tell myself not to watch, but when I turn around, I see that he's looked back as well. For some reason, I look down demurely, as if he didn't just fuck the living goddamn daylights out of me. He walks back to me, his hand cupping my face roughly, but kisses me so tenderly it is almost sad. It is sad. He's clearly sad that he’s leaving.
I'm sad he's leaving, too.
When he's gone, I sit down and tell myself that any minute, I am going to get up. That's when I hear a knocking at the door. I'm so confused. I go to the door, and I know who it is, this man in the suit before he even speaks.
"I've been camped out, waiting for that bastard to leave. I'm not sure how much time we have, but I need to know, can you tell me what he has?"
"Inspector Willoughby, what in the fuck are you doing here? Do you know how dangerous this is? What if someone saw you?"
"I was camped out for a while, I wasn't followed, and I'll be gone in a moment. Tell me what you know."
"Okay," I stutter out. I take a moment to compose my memory, and I reel off all the paintings that I saw when Jacob had me touring his vaulted collection. It wasn't easy for me to deceive Jacob like that, and I told myself that's because lying terrifies me. But I know I'm feeling guilty, even when I shouldn't. I'm working to get away. His feelings are the last thing I should care about. But I do. I just want to be far way so that I can't think about any of this, or be around this anymore.
"Leave," I say solemnly.
The inspector looks at me, and he gets wide eyed for a second. He nods and says, "I'll get you out of here soon."
I guess I should believe him. I shut the door, hoping Tatiana heard nothing, and I head up to the master bedroom. Am I going to get out of here soon? Why aren't I excited? Or even scared? Why do I now just feel numb?
Jacob
Leah's offering up herself to me, and I can't wait to see her come undone when I slide my cock into her.
Yes, she's swayed her hips and sunk onto my hard length. Her eyes roll back in her head. She makes a sweet little moaning sound. But fuck if she isn't with me and gone all at once. The booze gave her a certain amount of not give a fuck. Here I am like a damn sap, and that single fuck not given look may not be on her face but I feel it. There's lust, there's passion, but Leah may never give herself to me.
If this is what it feels like to lose, then fuck me but I'd sign up for this torture any day over winning. I can have all the money in the world -- I am one of the few that has most of it -- and never have something even half as good as the way she feels when she rides my cock. Leah is the sweetest thing I can never have. I know now in how she's giving herself to me without giving herself over at all, this girl will never truly be mine. I can't own her. How can this be? I can make her come, but I can't make her utterly surrender.
But I want to die trying. I bring my hand to the back of her neck, pulling her close and kissing her with every fucking ounce of my soul. I want her lips to feel sore tomorrow from how hard I've kissed her. I want her tongue to feel lonely because mine isn't claiming hers like it is now. I have to go somewhere tomorrow, tear myself away from her and find some air in my lungs when she isn't there. I cannot fucking stand the idea. My hips buck up and I slam my cock into her more.
Leah's riding me and I love that but I need her so goddamn much that I take her hands, pin them behind her back roughly, forcing her breasts into my mouth as I tear my mouth away from hers. That little moan when I stop tells me she felt just how much I wanted to fuck myself into her mouth. Now I'm going to devour her breasts while I slam my cock too damn hard into her. Maybe going easy on her is the right thing to do but I'm not the good guy. I'm not the knight in shining armor. I'm the thing that eats his honor and loses the lives of the ones he loves. I am fucking marking her so that when I'm gone tomorrow, I'll think about how every inch of her body can feel me everywhere. I'll haunt my sweet angel as much as I can, because Leah's soft curves, her gentle honey-colored waves, her innocent eyes, they'll all be playing out in my mind while I miss her.